


Like Reykjavik (Don't Blow Your Luck)

by Iseult_Variante



Category: Sahara (2005)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-21
Updated: 2005-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 04:21:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1631276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iseult_Variante/pseuds/Iseult_Variante
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I always thought that Reykjavik was one of my best plans."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Reykjavik (Don't Blow Your Luck)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Bast

 

 

**December 6th, 1916 - the North Atlantic, 455 miles northwest of the western Azores**

The _SS Mount Temple_ had left Montreal three days ago, carrying supplies for the Western Front: eggs, corn and horses. Seaman Richard Zabriskie, from Portland, Maine, who had signed on in Montreal (with a desperate need for cash, and a slightly more pressing need to leave town again), had helped load 22 crates destined for the Natural History Department of the British Museum. He didn't know what was in them - didn't much care. It was easier loading the crates than loading the horses, that was for damn sure.

Zabriskie had just come off duty, and was on deck heading astern to have a smoke, maybe catch up with Johnson, find out who was in for that night's poker game, when all Hell broke loose. "What the - "

Alarms began sounding for battle stations, and several men rushed by him, heading for the _Temple_ 's only gun. He looked out over the water, and was shocked to see a German cruiser closing fast, less than a mile away. He froze, staring in disbelief. There had been no warning, nothing had run the Naval blockade so far on this trip! They were just a merchant ship, no match for an enemy of that class!

He was quickly proven right as the German ship fired on the _Temple_ 's gun position from nearly point-blank range. He was thrown back and down onto the deck like a ragdoll and everything went abruptly black.

When he woke up two hours later, he hadn't missed much. He was in the infirmary of the German cruiser, _SMS Moewe_ , with a couple of his shipmates. One didn't look to last the night, and they had lost three other men - two at the gun, and one more overboard in the ensuing panic before the Germans boarded. When the doctor realized that he was awake, and Zabriskie had managed to get across that he was a neutral American citizen, and so not a prisoner of war, he was allowed up on deck, with an escort of a German sailor, Wilhelm, who seemed to understand a little English.

Up on deck, he gestured across the calm sea to the _Mount Temple_. "What are they going to do with her?"

"Sie versenken sie." Wilhelm mimed an explosion. "Sink her."

"Ah. Too bad." As he watched, he could see a single small boat pulling away from the _Temple_ , heading back to the _Moewe_. "Hey, how much would you bet that she'll keel over starboard before she goes down?"

The charges that the Germans had set at the waterline seemed to go off nearly simultaneously. The _Mount Temple_ sank quickly and with little ceremony, keeling port as she went.

 

 

 

 

**Present Day - the North Atlantic, NUMA ship _Sophia_**

"Dinosaurs? Seriously?" Al Giordino looked disbelievingly at the Admiral. "That's what we're going down for?"

Admiral Sandecker shrugged. "The Brits and the Canadians say that there's an important find down there. Half the shipment went on the _SS Milwaukee_ and made it, and then got shoved in some sub-basement somewhere in London. An intern pulled it out last year, dusted off the bones they had, and apparently now they need the bones that are missing." He pointed at the digital sonar image spread out on the worktable in front of him. "The bones that went down with the _Mount Temple_. We're going to be onsite for the next week on the oscillation project anyway, so I told them that if it there was a chance of taking a look... " He sighed happily. "I do love spending the government's money."

Dirk Pitt leaned in and looked at the pixelated image of the wreck. "She went down a long ways. Mostly intact though - leaning on her port side. What d'you think, Al?"

Al leaned over the image in turn. "Holes all along the hull where they scuttled her. Where'd they say the bones were?"

The Admiral checked the file from the British Museum. "The starboard-side aft hold, below the waterline." He pulled out a schematic. "Here."

"Doesn't look too badly broken up by the impact with the seafloor." Dirk said, mentally mapping the diagram onto the sonar image. He shook his head and whistled low. "That's, what, 14 000 feet? Those're some lucky bones, Al." Dirk looked mock-solemnly at his partner, green eyes wide. "It'd be a shame to leave them down there."

Al pretended to consider. "You know, if we bring them up, it's a lot like digging them up. We'd deserve at least half the credit." He grinned at Dirk. "Do you think they'd let us name the dinosaurs?"

 

 

 

 

Two days later, Dirk and Al were in NUMA's newest deep submergence vessel, an ungainly looking machine with an ungainly acronym that Al had named Bob. Bob was about the size of a walk-in closet turned on its side, with two robotic arms, a large cargo retrieval cage mounted on the belly, and a maximum depth of just under four miles. A two-man crew could easily manage the little submersible, and Dirk and Al had been in similar craft before, on similar (though dinosaur-free) projects. The quarters were a little cramped, but they'd only be down for four hours or so.

Bob slipped easily from the _Sophia_ 's A-frame, and started its descent. Al ran a quick systems check as Dirk checked in with the ship. "How's it looking from there, Rudi?"

"Looks good from here, guys. The Admiral says that the museum still won't let you name the dinosaurs."

"Well, that's what they say now. I'm sure when they hear about how we risked life and limb to bring up their bones they'll think differently. We'll be back with the Dirkosaurus in a couple hours." Dirk switched the radio off.

"Dirkosaurus? Oh, I don't think so."

"And your suggestion?"

"The mighty Giordinodor!"

They argued good-naturedly for the next hour, mostly to pass the time, going by habit from dinosaurs to baseball, to whether Al owed Dirk a case of tequila, and to how Dirk still hadn't been able to get Al's secret for stealing the Admiral's cigars.

Abruptly, Al broke off mid-sentence, checking the sonar screen. "Here she comes. About 100 yards ahead." He hit the submersible's exterior lights, which showed an alien landscape familiar to both men.

Dirk radioed up to the _Sophia_. "We're just coming up on her now. We'll let you know when we get to the hold if things are looking good."

"Roger that, Dirk. Good luck, you guys."

Although this mission was fairly routine, there was always a moderate amount of risk diving on a new wreck, and Al nagivated carefully over the _Temple_ , making several passes from bow to stern as he and Dirk assessed the best way to approach the recovery. She lay on her port side, as they had seen in the sonar image, with seven large holes strung along her hull.

"Looks good... I think that we could probably set up right on top of the starboard side. Enlarge that last blast hole, drop in right next to the hold, and cut in from there."

"Yeah." Al frowned in concentration as he started to circle down closer to the wreck. "Man, those are some lucky bones - that blast hole has done half our work for us. Almost got it... there." Dirk took over keeping the sub in position, while Al started up one of Bob's robotic arms. Activating the saw, he began cutting into the hull of the wreck, where it was already damaged from the demolition charge.

"See," Dirk began, "easy as pie. And you always complain that we never get any missions where no one is shooting at - "

"Shit." Al abruptly stopped sawing, and the cutting tool spun to a halt, still embedded in the hull.

" - us. What?"

"What's that?"

"Where?"

"Just below the saw? The thing that looks a lot like an unexploded World War I demolition charge?"

Dirk quickly checked the image on the sonar screen, and then took a closer look out the front porthole. There was an object, about five feet square, sitting up against the bulkhead, just inside the blast hole. "Well, Al, I'd say that's an unexploded World War I demolition charge."

"I knew you'd say that. You always say that!"

"Is it going to go off?"

"Not yet?"

"Right. I'll call up and let them know the situation. You think of a plan."

"No problem. Can you ask them to bring down some pizza?"

"I would, but I think we finished off the pepperoni last week - Hi, Rudi. We've run into a small problem down here."

"What kind of problem?"

"Well... I don't think these are lucky bones anymore."

Dirk filled in the crew on the _Sophia_ , but there wasn't much that they could do. "You guys just try not to break my new submarine, you got that?" Admiral Sandecker ordered gruffly. "We'll be waiting to pick you up when you surface."

"Yessir, Admiral. Over and out."

"You know, he sounded concerned."

"Now that's just crazy, Al, since we have everything under control."

"Right. Well, I've been thinking, and so far I've got this: the bomb isn't going to go off unless we move the saw. The saw is currently embedded in the hull, so that it needs to be either started back up, or yanked out pretty damn hard, maybe. If we start the saw back up to get it out, all bets are off, likewise with the yanking strategy. So I see us with two options. One, we don't move, and die of asphyxiation when the last of the emergency life support runs out in... oh... two days. Or two, we blow up."

"Those are our only options?"

"Unless you've got a crazy plan? Which I'm kind of counting on. I don't really like those options."

Dirk stared for a minute out the porthole. Then he looked at the sonar image, zooming it out to show the whole wreck.

"Oh, come on - you've had a plan since you got on the radio!"

"Al. Don't spoil the moment."

"Fine. Whenever you're ready."

"Ok, so we've got another robot arm, right?"

"Right."

"And the bomb doesn't seem to be attached to anything, right? It's just lying there on the bulkhead?"

"Dirk, I don't like this plan."

"Yeah, but you really hate being blown up."

"True."

"So we pick up the bomb, and sort of," Dirk mimed something like a slow-motion, one-handed free-throw. "Lob it over the _Temple_ , and run in the other direction."

"Because the robot arms are so good at lobbing."

"Hey, you asked for a crazy plan!"

"Not this crazy! God, I hate being blown up."

"It won't be that big an explosion!"

"So we'll only be a little blown-up?"

"Exactly! You take the other arm; I'll get ready to get us the hell out of here."

It almost worked. Bob's second robot arm was very sensitive, designed to be able to recover delicate archeological finds. Al was able to use it to reach down into the blast hole, and pick up the bomb with no problems, while muttering slurs about Dirk, crazy plans and lucky bones.

He carefully raised the arm up out of the blast hole, avoiding contact with the jagged edges of the hull, and paused.

"Any suggestions?"

"Over the superstructure. And don't drop it."

"Thanks. You ready?"

Dirk had one hand ready to tear the saw free, and the other on the forward thrusters. "Yeah. Do it."

Al extended the base section of the arm to its full length, and drew back the upper portion. "One, two... three!"

The front portion of the arm swooped forward, towards the _Temple_ and Al released the claw as it came through the top of its arc. "Go, go, go!"

Dirk didn't bother starting the saw, just yanked the first arm out with a rending of metal, and slammed the forward thrusters to full. Bob shot back from the side of the _Temple_ as the demolition charge tumbled through the water towards the upper part of her superstructure.

Tumbled, and fell, and impacted.

The explosion wasn't very big, but they hadn't gotten very far away from it. Bob was tossed into a barrel-roll further from the wreck, and into the seabed.

Inside the submersible, all the lights had gone out.

"Ow. Dammit. Sitting on my head. Oh, hey, Dirk."

"Hey. That almost worked."

"Almost."

"You OK?"

"Except for where I took your elbow to the ribs, I'm A-OK. You?"

"Fine. How's Bob?"

"Not sure. I think you're lying on his control panel."

"So I am."

"OK, here's the radio, if it works, tell Sandecker that we might have broken his sub. And roll over so I can get to the diagnostics."

The radio was working, and the Admiral was forgiving about the state of his sub. "We've been on the horn with the French - they can bring the _Nautile_ , to bring you back up, but they can't get here for another eight hours. You guys OK until then?"

"I don't know. Al? Are we good for another eight hours?"

"Yeah, everything's working except propulsion and navs." He flipped a switch, bringing the lights back on. "And we're sort of upside down. But even sonar's still running - I can see the _Temple_. And I think the explosion missed the cargo hold again!"

"Those lucky damn bones! Yeah, Admiral, we're good. Call us when _la cavalerie_ arrives."

Al was staring at the sonar screen, shaking his head. "I mean, I'm looking at it upside down, but it really looks fine."

"Didn't I say they were lucky bones?"

"Man..." Al shook his head one last time, and then leaned back against the now vertical floor of the sub. "So, what are we going to do for the next eight hours?"

"Well..." Dirk leaned over and reached into the small storage compartment. "I packed light, but I did bring some essentials."

"Tequila and a deck of cards." Al leaned over and snagged the half-empty bottle, unscrewed the cap and took a shot. "I knew there was a reason I kept you around, even after you got me shot and blown up!"

"Hey now - shot _at_ and _almost_ blown up."

"Except for that time in Alaska."

Dirk took back the offered bottle and took a drink. "Except for that time in Alaska."

 

 

 

 

They played poker for four hours, using the computer to keep track of bets and winnings, but gave up once Al lost all of his money. They took an hour to eat the lunch they had packed for the ascent back to the _Sophia_ , and to discuss whether this was the worst situation in which they'd eaten lunch (it wasn't - Manila won that distinction by grace of the fact that they'd had to eat insects). Blackjack lasted another hour, and saw them finish off the tequila; they gave up on I-Spy after fifteen minutes.

"God, I'm bored."

They were sitting across from each other, with their legs stretched out side by side. Al was slumped forward with his head in his hands, and Dirk had his head tilted back to rest against the side of the sub, his eyes closed.

"I'll remember this the next time you complain that we never go anywhere quiet."

"Oh, come on - there's got to be some happy medium - no shooting, no explosions, but a little something other than nothing!"

Dirk cracked open one eye. "You could take a nap?"

"You know I always sucked at that 'sleep anywhere and anytime you can get it' stuff from SEAL training."

Dirk closed his eye again. "I was always pretty good at it, though. Sleep through anything."

"Don't you go to sleep on me, dammit!"

Dirk didn't reply.

"Oh, come on, you can't leave me here, awake and bored for another hour! You owe me! Your crazy plan almost got me blown up!"

Dirk sighed, and opened his eyes. "So I need to keep you distracted for another hour."

"Yes! Is that too easy for a crazy plan?"

"Well..." Dirk drawled, leaning slowly forward, and putting a hand on Al's shin. "Do you remember Sicily?"

Al sat straight up against the sub floor. "Yes, I remember Sicily. Sicily was like Victoria."

"I seem to remember that you liked Victoria."

"Yeah, until the thing with the sharks. Victoria was a lot like Capetown. You think we need to pull a Capetown?"

"Maybe more of a Reykjavik. But it would seem to solve the problem." Dirk had rolled up, and was crouching at Al's feet, looking at him expectantly and grinning, all green eyes and white teeth. "What do you think, Al?"

Al leaned forward. "It's a good plan. C'mere."

Dirk met him halfway, lips and tongue and teeth, putting a hand down at either side of his hips. Al got his left hand in Dirk's hair, and leaned back against the side of the sub again, pulling Dirk with him and running his right hand down Dirk's side.

Dirk thrust his tongue hard into Al's mouth one last time before breaking away and starting to work his way down Al's throat. Al grabbed at Dirk's shoulder and let his head fall back with a moan. He could feel Dirk's grin against his collarbone, where he'd pulled the collar of Al's shirt aside.

Dirk's hands were rubbing circles over Al's hips, brushing the skin where his shirt had ridden up and his pants were riding low. Al thrust up a little with his hips, not able to help himself, as Dirk bit and licked his neck where it met his shoulder. Dirk leaned up again, kissing Al wet and hard while he unzipped Al's pants, and pulled his dick out of his boxers, stroking once, hard, from root to tip. He kneeled back, and looked at Al affectionately. "I always thought that Reykjavik was one of my best plans."

Al, looking even more rumpled than usual, swallowed and nodded. "Genius, really. Come on, come on!"

At that, Dirk leaned back down and licked up the underside of Al's dick before taking it in his mouth. Al moaned and closed his eyes, reaching down with both hands, one stroking Dirk's shoulders, and the other sliding back into Dirk's hair. "Knew... there was a reason... I kept you... around."

Dirk licked his way off of Al's dick and looked up, as Al opened his eyes and looked down. They grinned at each other. "The blowjobs?"

"The blowjobs. And the rest of the sex, sure. But I am partial to the blowjobs."

Dirk looked smug, and leaned back down, sucking harder this time, holding Al down by the hips and swallowing as Al clenched his hand in Dirk's hair and came hard, knocking his head back against the side of the sub. Dirk pulled off and rested his forehead against Al's hip, eyes closed, breathing hard, Al's hand still in his hair, moving absently.

The radio crackled to life. "Dirk? Al? The French have arrived with the _Nautile_. Al? Dirk? You guys there?"

Al reached over and grabbed at the radio. "Yeah, hi there, Rudi. They're early! Not that I'm complaining. It's getting pretty boring down here."

"Where's Dirk?"

"He's just getting some shut-eye. You know him, he can sleep through anything."

"Alright, well, glad you guys are holding up OK! The _Nautile_ is on it's way down to your position; they'll be in touch when they get a visual."

"That's great. Over and out."

Al switched the radio off again. "You know, it'll take them an hour to get down to us."

"Yes, it will."

"I'm still pretty bored."

Dirk's grin was very white. "Me too, Al. Me, too."

 


End file.
